1 born in the shadow of Chernobel, climbing rubble;
1 rejecting Torah for Logic, talking semantics;
1 looking for death in life, humming Jazz in a taxi;
1 in search of social Justice, following the shoreline;
1 an observer at a Revolution, rowing blindly;
1 finding Ethics in storefronts, saving souls and money;
1 a voice at the edge, fringing mainstream Culture;
1 Metaphorically taking walks in a wheelchair.

Any of these
might be a friend or family.
There they are
treading lightly,
crossing the road in traffic,
watching children in the park,
rushing home in the dark,
avoiding making meaning
by examining life at all costs.

They are at risk of losing
sight and mind or mobility.
They flex muscles most of us have lost
through time and neglect.
Nevertheless
we can fly
where they only prepare to die.
My 8 have no use
for mythology
and love destroying “Truth”
by any other name.
They would maim
foresight, insight, hindsight
just to extend the game
and mine the past for ethics, justice,
responsibility and shame.

The deeper they go
the more they erase
our space and time
expanding the chase from paradigm to paradigm.
Until the riddles accelerate to escape velocity
And they leave us to our senses
As they reach for transcendence…

While they still walk on solid ground
I might join them, take a short ride,
stumble up slopes of effluent and mayhem,
open a door
watch waves grabbing at the shore, dodge a bullet,
glide up ramps to public places, see the fascination
reflected on faces in commercial glass,
or hide behind a picket sign
brandished by some working class.
I might hide in their midst
to catch a glimpse
of what we could share
or bare
in spite of our philosophical frames.
We must dream and therefore we need to be.
All the rest comes better naturally.
You walk, they walk, we all talk
to make a “good life”.
Leave the good death for later.

And meanwhile, even better,
try planting a seed, then another.
Feed the planet, share the wealth
that the unlikely universe provides
to make us
somehow enchanted,
wrapped in the mystery of Eden
that Philosophy only dreams of unraveling
And science only calculates disastrously.
Plant a seed, plant a thought,
Watch them grow
as the ecology of life and thinking
creates a predetermined path
that’s in our nature to follow.
And if we step out, step off
that yellow brick road
that our semantics and hopes have paved
we may plummet a great way,
thrilled by the awe of empty space,
appalled by the limits of our own brains,
speeding toward who knows where,
moving to achieve entropy
in free fall
like Poetry.
s. l. brown